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AN 




ADDRESS 




DELIVERED BEFORE 


THE MEMBERS OF THE SCHOOLS, 




AND 


THE 


CITIZENS OF QUINCY, 


X 


JULY 4, 1856. 




BY 


CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 




BOSTON: 


LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. 


Si^H- 


185 6. 



} 






An 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



THE MEMBERS OF THE SCHOOLS, 



THE CITIZENS OF QUINCY, 



JULY 4,1856. 



BY 




CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, \%ov^%%^. 



BOSTON : 
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY 



185 6, 






QuiNCY, July 23, 1856. * 
At a meeting of the School Committee, Voted^ that the Chairman pre- 
sent the thanks of the Committee to the Hon. Charles F. Adams, for 
the very able oration delivered by him on the 4th of July last, and re- 
quest of him a copy for publication. 

W. W. BAXTER, Sec'y. 



CAMBRIDGE: 
ALLEN AND FAENHAM, PRINTERS. 



ADDRESS. 



My young Friends : 

Late as was the notice of this celebration, I felt as 
if I could not decline to take the part in it assigned to 
me, if I might hope by accepting, to be of any service 
to you, in whose progress through the period of your 
education I have taken a constant interest. This is a 
day set apart for instruction in a department not em- 
braced in the ordinary course of the schools. It is the 
day for forming, for nerving, for purifying the patriotic 
heart both of young and old. Fortunate indeed is 
it for us in America that we have an anniversary, to 
which, whether in seasons of prosperity, or of adversity, 
of security, or of alarm, we can have recourse, for the 
purpose of invigorating our spirits with the remem- 
brance of trials happily passed by others, and of clear- 
ing our perception of the modes by which we may go 
with safety through those that are in store for us. Here 
we live over again the contests of a heroic age, and 
learn from the various examples that it furnishes, bad 
as well as good, how best to bear ourselves in our own. 
For although the difficulties that embarrass the succes- 
sive generations of the race are seldom precisely the 



same, they are all equally susceptible of resolution if 
subjected to the test of principles upon which time has 
set the seal of truth. You, my young friends, are yet 
on the very threshold of life. Many of you reasonably 
expect to reach over the limit of the present century, 
and thus to have under your eyes, nay, perhaps, di- 
rectly to contribute much to the elucidation of this 
problem of self-government now in progress o^ solution 
in America. It may then not be without its use to 
you, on occasions like this, to lend an attentive ear to 
the precepts of your fathers, and before you shall be 
called to take a part in the action of your times, to fix 
in your minds a vivid impression of the words which 
they taught, of the spirit by which they were moved, 
and of the deeds whether of glory or of suffering, of 
daring or of patience by which they proved them- 
selves fitting examples for your imitation, and that 
of your successors so long as this globe of earth shall 
endure. 

And first, I pray you to remember that the great 
revolution which emancipated America was not the 
result of any wish of your fathers at the outset. They 
were contented and happy enough so long as they 
were let alone. It was the aggressive spirit of their 
rulers which roused first their indignation, and then 
their resistance. It was the wanton disregard of 
their dearest rights merely to subserve narrow and 
selfish interests in the government at home, which 
stirred up the emotions that gave energy to their ulti- 
mate action. Never was there in the history of the 
world a more joyous era of peace and good feelings 
than at the close of the reign of the second of the 
Brunswick line. George the Third became King under 



circumstances such as had never before united to bless 
any occupant of his throne. He was young, having 
just attained the lawful age, and he had with him the 
prepossessions natural to all peoj)le, but to none more 
than the British race, for the youthful heir* He was 
the first native son of the soil whom it had been possi- 
ble even for the oldest of his subjects to hail as their 
sovereign during their day. He followed a series of 
strangers, who neither by education, habits, nor char- 
acter, possessed a single quality around which their 
loyalty might centre with enthusiasm. He came at a 
moment when the factions formed out of the attach- 
ment to an expelled dynasty had ceased from troubling 
the public peace by attempts at restoration, and when 
a most brilliantly conducted war, under the direction 
of one of the greatest of English statesmen, was on 
the point of conclusion by a treaty at once proclaim- 
ing the humiliation of France, and the expansion of the 
British power over a prodigious geographical surface in 
both hemispheres. No time had been afforded to scan 
the particular qualities of the youthful monarch, or to 
strip him of that illusive coloring with which it is the 
delight of mankind to surround the darling portraits 
of their imagination. Never before had the red cross 
of St. George floated so proudly over such a breadth 
of sea and land. Never before had so spontaneous 
and universal an acclamation swelled from across the 
oceans of the West, and from beyond the mountains 
of the East, to join in hailing the accession of a 
stripling to the sway over the fortunes of a devoted 

* Upon this tendency, some remarkable comments are made hj 
Lord Brougham in his historical sketch of George the Fourth. 

1* 



♦ 6 



people. It seemed in his case, as if the most vivid 
fancy of an oriental imagination had been exceeded 
by the reality, and as if naught were necessary be- 
yond the exercise of the simplest prudence, to make 
the reign thus about to commence, approximate the 
picture which the poet paints of the first paradise, 

" God liad here 
Varied his bounty so with new delights 
As may compare with Heaven." 

But if in one respect more than another George 
had reason to congratulate himself on his good fortune, 
it was in the observation of the magnificent empire 
opening under his hand in America. Here had grown 
from small beginnings thirteen distinct communities 
into flourishing States, all zealously vaunting their al- 
legiance and claiming his protection. They had lived 
through their infancy of struggle with the savages, and 
their successors, the neighboring settlements of hostile 
France, and now, thanks to the self-devotion of the 
immortal Wolfe, even that ample territory, which their 
enemy cherished in order to hold them in check, had 
fallen as a prize to the British arms. From the frozen 
regions of the arctic circle to the neighborhood of the 
tropics, stretching over forty degrees of latitude, the 
eastern side of the great American continent acknowl- 
edged no other master. A greater legacy never fell 
into the hands of a single man. It needed only the 
fostering care of a paternal hand to turn the desert into 
a garden, and to make the solitudes of the forest ring 
with the sounds of joyful industry. From the recesses 
of every valley and from the heights of every mountain 
would then spring up millions of happy subjects, grate- 



1 



fill for the blessings that had fallen to their share, and 
willing- to award a full measure of their thanks to him 
under whose guardianship their prosperity had been 
established. 

Such was the overruling good fortune which attended 
the succession of the young George, when in the latter 
part of 1760, he grasped the sceptre. But, as if it were 
the intent of Divine Providence to supply in him a 
fresh proof of the facility with which the perverseness 
of a ruler can in a few years dissipate the fairest gifts 
of Heaven, scarcely had the acclamations died away 
which had hailed him as a blessing, than murmurs arose 
denoting the rise of a very different class of emotions. 
Even in the streets of the capital, and almost in the 
hearing of the monarch, were heard notes of alarm at 
unworthy favoritism as well as at unlooked for inva- 
sions of the time-honored guaranties of the subject's 
security. And if this shock to popular confidence was 
wantonly perpetrated so soon in the metropolis itself, it 
is not to be wondered at if still more lamentable errors 
made themselves perceptible in the remoter dependen- 
cies of the kingdom. Accordingly, it was but a mo- 
ment before the gratulations which had been so freely 
poured out in America at the feet of royalty, received 
a check, and then changed into tones of the most pas- 
sionate indignation. 

And what was it that so suddenly cast a gloom over 
this picture of beauty and of peace ? What was it that 
raised in a breath the popular waves mountain high 
where just before there had appeared a summer's sun 
reflected upon an ocean of glass? The cause of this 
change it is not difficult now to discern. It was the 
temper of the sovereign, developing the narrow preju- 



dices of his chosen agents. A statesman, short-sighted, 
formal, and exclusive in spirit, had infused into the new 
policy of the reign, the essence of a despotic system, 
and, as with the wand of a magician, had by a wave of 
his hand changed the hopes of men into fears, their joy 
into sadness, their love into rage. Especially had he 
reserved as the best field for the exercise of his skill 
the wide spread possessions of Great Britain on this 
western continent. 

! say not that in any land where mankind is gath- 
ered into communities, no matter how minute may be 
the subdivision of power, it is not possible for a single 
misguided or reckless man, when vested with authority, 
to do things in a moment which produce consequences 
no later prudence can avert and no repentance atone 
for. George Grenville struck the blow which shook 
America to its foundations. The scales fell from the 
eyes of the people. The King, upon whom they had 
but a few days before looked as on a guardian angel, 
seemed now little better than a tyrant, and the govern- 
ment which promised so many blessings appeared as 
producing nothing but a malediction. The land teemed 
only with discord ; and honest people looked gloomily 
on each other when they met, as if every new day were 
to bring evil and not good, in its train. Gtenville had 
unchained the furies of antiquity. Alecto roused her- 
self at the sight of the harvest of strife, — 

" Et grave Tisiplione risit gavisa futuris." 

Yet the motives which had tempted Grenville to his 
fatal policy, were by no means such as to justify any 
public man in resorting to a measure of merely doubt- 
ful expediency. He had thoughtlessly embraced a 



project which had not even novelty for its recommen- 
dation ; for the experienced eye of Sir Robert Wal- 
pole, had long before detected the danger, the fear 
of which led him very wisely to decline it. Grenville a 
had . done irreparable mischief by destroying the con- I 
fidence of Americans in the good faith of the govern- 
ment. And this not from any general principle or 
comprehensive purpose, but solely to gratify the sel- 
fish desires of a small body of men wielding a dispro- 
portionate share of political power in the House of Com- 
mons, and through that body over the form of gov- 
ernment itself From the day of the revolution that 
called William of Orange to the throne, Great Britain 
had been under the rule of an oligarchy, denominated 
the Whig party, but really consisting of a few per- 
sons in the House of Peers, connected with an order 
of gentlemen, proprietors of great landed estates, who 
could command by means of their wealth a large pro- 
portion of the seats in the House of Commons. The 
source of their strength lay in the closeness of their 
association, cemented as it was by a common bond, the 
preservation of their property, and by the pursuit of 
a common object, the control of the official patronage 
of the government. It was to the good-will of this 
narrow connection that most of the aspirants to power 
had been in the habit of addressing themselves, rather 
than to the favor of the great body of the nation. 
And George Grenville formed no exception to the rule. 
He had risen to the post of prime minister, and he 
naturally labored to confirm himself in the place. In 
this view, it occurred to him that the taxation of this 
far-off but flourishing country of America would be 
very agreeable to those he was seeking to conciliate. 



10 



by relieving them of a certain proportion of the bur- 
dens pressing on their own property. Of the abstract 
justice of such a plan, or of the extent to which it 
might raise opposition as a violation of political rights, 
he took no note whatever. America stood in his eyes 
solely as a dependency existing for the benefit of the 
little island of Great Britain, from which it would be 
perfectly fair to draw money, whenever it might seem 
unadvisable to attempt to force too much out of the 
pockets of the country gentlemen. 

In regard to the immediate object he had in hand, 
Grenville was not mistaken in his calculations. The 
small circle of his masters in Parliament manifested 
great satisfaction with his new invention for coining 
money without trouble. It looked to them much as the 
lamp did to Aladdin in Eastern story, a thing which 
they had only to rub, and forthwith would come the 
means of gratifying even the most extravagant wishes. 
As to the king, he had probably never thought of the 
plan before it w^as proposed to him, but after it was 
suggested, and especially after it seemed to be so 
agreeable to his faithful commons, there was nothing 
in his own character or temper which stood in the way 
of cordial concurrence. So the whole scheme went 
through the necessary forms with but a shadow of 
opposition. Some of the colonial agents ventured to 
whisper that there might be difficulty in America, but 
their representations were heeded no more than the 
ripple of the distant ocean. For what could the Amer- 
icans do, but submit to the pleasure of their masters 
with a good grace ? 

Yet in this wanton act of an accidental leader of a 
haughty and exclusive party is to be seen the seed of 



11 



the mighty Ee volution, the fruits of which are, even 
after the lapse of ninety years, yet produced only in 
small measure, comparatively with those promised in 
futurity. Grenville had shaken the reliance of a whole 
continent in the good faith of Britain. He had spread 
a general distrust of her disposition to abide by com- 
pacts hallowed by time, under which rights had be- 
come confirmed portions of the mental constitution of 
populous communities. The error once committed was 
in its very nature irreparable. It was of no avail 
that the originator very soon disappeared from the 
scene, and that others followed him earnestly disposed 
to apply some effective remedy. Parliament had sol- 
emnly declared, "that it was just and necessary that| 
a revenue should be raised in America," without inti- 
mating an idea of the possibility of needing the concur- 
rence of the people. So long as this record remained 
on the statute-book, it was utterly immaterial what 
might be the extent of the surrenders of the practice. 
The danger continued of a revival at the caprice of 
every new minister. Nothing could quiet the unea- 
siness short of an abandonment of the right; and of 
that there was no symptom. Much as the Americans 
were disposed to rejoice at the repeal of the stamp act, 
they felt that they could do so only with trembling. 
The same inducement to court the favor of the ruling 
power of the House of Commons, which had first led 
Grenville to attempt the fatal experiment, might impel 
any one of his successors to repeat it. And in this fore- 
boding they were not mistaken. For not two years 
elapsed before Charles Townshend, perhaps in a moment 
of artificial exhilaration, taking fire at the expression of 
a doubt by his political opponents, of his courage to 



12 



propose it, precipitately pledged himself to renew the 
claim, a pledge which he soon afterwards • redeemed, by 
suggesting the memorable tax on tea. 

There are lessons in this story, which it behooves the 
men of every age, who take a part in political affairs, 
to lay to heart. George Grenville, it is true, was no 
great things of a statesman. Even the friendly rheto- 
ric of Edmund Burke raises him little above the cate- 
gory of public men who sacrifice the essentials of gov- 
ernment to a pertinacious devotion to forms, — those 
now known, in the cant phrase of the day, in Britain, 
as the men of red tape. But as sometimes happens 
with such men, Grenville, by the very rigidity with 
which he followed up a precedent, losing sight of the 
different circumstances in which he was applying it, 
actually struck a bolder stroke than if he had been 
the most daring of innovators. His vision, confined 
within the circle of Cocker's arithmetic, discerned no 
question of rights or wrongs in a measure to raise 
money. If the people of England were liable to pay 
the expenses of government, why were the people of 
the colonies not to pay likewise? It probably never 
occurred to him to reflect, that in the one case there 
were safeguards against abuses of the power which did 
not exist in the other ; and that, therefore, what was 
justice in Great Britain might nevertheless work a 
tyranny in America. His error was the result not 
so much perhaps of wilful intention as of inconsid- 
eration, fixvored by a spirit habitually negligent of 
popular rights. Yet it is not the less certain that 
in the positions of highest responsibility where in- 
calculable results are likely to flow from even the 
chance acts of a political chief, no excuse of ignorance, 



13 



or inadvertence, and no palliation of good intention 
can be received for the commission of enormous mis- 
takes. Especially is this the case where the primary 
motive does not seem adequate to authorize a disas- 
trous measure. There can be no doubt that it was in 
order the more firmly to fix himself in his seat, that 
he chose to tempt a controlling body of persons in the 
state by the hope of relieving themselves from a part 
of the public burdens, to give their sanction to a breach 
of the public faith, and to an invasion of the rights of 
large numbers of their fellow men. He tempted them, 
and they fell. In the language of the great poet ap- 
plied to a crime of deeper dye, though equally the 
offspring of the want of consideration, 

" Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat 
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe 
That all was lost." 

Yes, such was the penalty of an act intended only to 
serve a very inferior purpose, but the operation of 
which was to destroy the great element which holds 
society itself together. Yes, good faith was lost. And 
wdth it America was lost to Great Britain. And then 
and there was the child Independence born. 

A secondary cause which contributed to this result 
is to be found in the degree to which British states- 
men undervalued the character of the people with 
whom they were dealing. The idea that these would 
have the audacity to resist any measure which it might 
please the mother country to adopt, no matter how 
distasteful, never for a moment entered their minds. 
They might have anticipated a little temporary mur- 
muring ; possibly some remonstrances and warm reso- 

2 



14 



lutions — nay, even some petitions, such as actually 
came in course of time, and were very summarily 
thrown under the Parliamentary table; but that this 
would all blow over, and that the people, finding there 
was no help, that the thing was done and could not be 
undone, would ultimately submit to the stern necessity, 
and bear themselves cheerfully afterwards, did not to 
them admit of a doubt. Even the general resistance 
to the introduction of the stamps which defeated that 
measure, did not completely rouse them from this de- 
lusion ; neither was it until the destruction of the tea 
that they began to believe that those over whom they 
were assuming such an extent of authority, were not 
yet slaves, and did not mean to become so, if they 
could prevent it. 

It ought however to be observed in this connec- 
tion that the British ministers were not altogether to 
blame for the impressions they had formed of the char- 
acter of our people. They could receive them only 
from those persons with whom they were brought most 
directly in contact. These were the applicants for 
office, the petitioners for favors, the suppliants for 
grace. Now if any man is going to make up a judg- 
ment of the character of a nation from that of the 
courtiers who stand around a throne, or of the place- 
hunters who infest the ante-rooms of ministers, or of 
the demagogues who fawn upon the people for their 
sweet voices, he will be very likely to think of it 
pretty much as the British ministry thought of the 
colonists — that they were servile in spirit, and not 
trustworthy anywhere. Such men are all of the same 
genus — and only vary in the species with the cir- 
cumstances under which they unfold their nature. 



15 



Neither was it only from their experience of the class 
with which they had directly to deal, that they formed 
such an opinion. They could not fail to be more or 
less affected by the representations obtained through 
these sources, of the motives and acts of the Colonists 
generally. The effect was thoroughly to poison the 
sources of their information. The office holders wrote 
what they thought would be agreeable and' ingratiate 
themselves, rather than what was true. They ridi- 
culed the opposition to the obnoxious measures, and 
instigated to the perseverance in them at all hazards. 
Whenever a popular outbreak happened, ministers 
were told that it was the work of a few factious dis- 
organizers, that it was only momentary, and would soon 
die away. When things looked more serious, they 
were urged to persist, and to send out a few regiments 
and some ships of war, who would frighten nobody but 
a few old women, and yet would secure obedience. 
They were stimulated at last to adopt the motto, " we 
will subdue you," which ended in the catastrophe at 
Lexington and Bunker's hill. May God ever protect 
a hapless people from the influence of such desperate 
advisers ! In this cause no man proved more energetic 
and more officious than Thomas Hutchinson, a native of 
Massachusetts, once the idol of her population, but who 
had bartered their affections and his own principles for 
the possession of the highest places in the province. 
He served like a perpetual blister on the body politic, 
at once to inflame and to torment it. Such men play 
a part more or less prominent in every age. From 
traitors to Liberty, whether made so by the mere love 
of pelf, or the more lofty but not less selfish aspira- 
tions for power. Good Lord, in all seasons, deliver us. 



16 



Neither were they confined to any particular grade of 
public service. There were instruments of all kinds. 
And one of these immortalized his infamy by resorting 
to that outrageous assault upon the earliest and boldest 
of our patriots, James Otis, Jr., which effectually im- 
paired his reason for the remainder of his life ; 

" And Amnon's murder, by a specious name 
Was called a just revenge for injured fame" 

but which only had the effect of stimulating his coun- 
trymen to a determination ten thousand times stronger 
than ever, to overthrow the haughty domination which 
had prompted the crime. 

If this brief view of the early causes of the declara- 
tion of Independence be in any way just, they must be 
found, first, in the wilful sacrifice made of American 
Liberty by a British statesman for the sake of ingra- 
tiating himself with a privileged class at home ; sec- 
ondly, in the treachery of venal natives of the colonies, 
instigating a perseverance in a system of oppression 
by holding out false hopes of ultimate victory. 

But it must not be imagined for a moment, because 
this experiment failed, that it had not very strong 
grounds for the expectation of success. The freemen 
of America had acted, it is true, with vigor in defeating 
the obnoxious acts of the stamp and the tea tax. But 
this had been rather the consequence of sudden impulse 
than of any organized resistance. Although greatly 
preponderant in numbers, there were nevertheless re- 
spectable minorities of greater or less power in most of 
the colonies, w^liich were not only averse to any re- 
course to violent opposition, but really in their hearts 
wished success to the aggressors. Besides this, there 



17 



was another great drawback on their efforts. The peo- 
ple were separated into thirteen commimities, distinct 
from each other in government, in habits, in manners, 
and in their forms of rehgious faith. Some of them en- 
tertained deeply rooted antipathies against the others, 
the effect of causes traceable into their very origin. 
Up to this time the communications between them had 
been rare. The early puritan of Massachusetts had 
been in the habit of regarding the quakers of Pennsyl- 
vania as of the troublesome class of brawlers whom his 
fathers had indignantly expelled from their borders, 
and the Catholics of Maryland as little better than the 
children of the scarlet woman seated on her throne in 
the seven-hilled city ; whilst they in their turn had 
learned to view him as a dangerous leveller in politics 
and a fanatic in religion. Time had indeed softened 
away the roughest lines of these prejudices ; but they 
still remained, at least to such an extent as to imply 
an alienation of spirit which might prove an effective 
obstacle to the establishment of every effective form of 
united resistance, in the contingency of a struggle with 
arbitrary power. 

It was upon a full comprehension of the nature of 
these advantages on his side that Lord North, when he 
succeeded to the direction of affairs, made his calcu- 
lations of reestablishing the authority now seriously 
shaken. Of Massachusetts, in which the sentiment of 
opposition seemed the most general and determined, 
he had little hope, excepting through the direct use of 
force. Accordingly he determined to send out such an 
army as might overawe the people, whilst his agents 
were to inflict the chastisement which he had in store 
for her insubordination. She was to be made an ex- 



18 



ample of, as a warning to the other colonies. Towards 
New York and Pennsylvania a different policy was 
adopted, having the aspect of conciliation, bat really 
intended the more certainly to enslave them. ^Divide 
and conqiiei'l was his motto. Neither was he without 
good cause for believing that there existed in both 
those colonies powerful interests which might be de- 
pended upon at a proper time and in the right way to 
throw their influence on his side. And he well knew 
that if those colonies could be once persuaded to refuse 
their cooperation, were it only to remain neutral, the 
obstacles interposed to further united action of the re- 
maining colonies would be insuperable. 

And it must be confessed that there was a moment 
when the cause was in extreme peril. Massachusetts, 
however determined to resist, was in no condition to 
carry on a war single-handed with her great antago- 
nist. Her safety lay either in submission or in the 
success of an appeal to her sister colonies to join in 
resistance whilst there was time. Happily they proved 
not insensible to the earnestness of her call. Seeing 
that in her fate was involved the security of the con- 
tinent, they agreed in the plan of sending to the city 
of Philadelphia, delegates selected from among their 
most trustworthy men, whose duty it should be to 
meet together, and to consult upon \}aQ best measures 
to be taken to avert the evils by which all were threat- 
ened. Thus was formed the first congress, which met 
in September, 1774, composed of delegates from eleven 
colonies, the nucleus of that great measure of union 
wdiich ultimately worked the salvation of republican 
liberty in this Western Plemisphere. 



19 



My young Friends, — I do not propose to fatigue 3'ou 
by following out this narrative more minutely. My 
design has been to show you, first, that your fathers 
were no seekers of discord, but that they were driven 
to resistance only by a wanton destruction of the safe- 
guards to their freedom by the government at home ; 
secondly, that this was precipitated mainly by the reck- 
lessness of one public man, who from selfish motives, 
lighted the torch of civil war which neither he nor 
any one after him proved able to quench ; thirdly, 
that their salvation was effected only by their convic- 
tion of the paramount necessity of union among all 
those who held the same opinions, for the common 
defence and the common protection. Bear these con- 
clusions in mind, my friends, wherever you go, and in 
whatever trials you may be placed. For they may be 
of as much use to you in extricating 3^ou out of any 
future difficulties in your way, as they were eighty 
years ago to those who went before you. 

I will now proceed to touch upon only two more 
events in the Revolution from which a useful moral 
may now be drawn. The first of these occurred soon 
after the fact became certain that war was upon us. 
The blood shed at Lexington and Concord warned the 
Americans that General Gage was ready to let loose 
the mercenaries of Britain upon the population of Mas- 
sachusetts, and no safety was left for them but in a call 
to arms. On a sudden there appeared on the heights 
around the town of Boston myriads of men with mus- 
ket and sabre, powder-horn and shot-bag, ready to fight 
as well as they knew how in defence of their hearth- 
stones, but not well prepared for a continuous struggle 
with trained bands, inured to discipline and directed by 



•20 



an experienced chief. Rushing in as they did from all 
quarters, many of them from the neighboring colonies, 
they recognized no common leader ; and coming for 
the most part voluntarily, they acknowledged no obli- 
gation to remain longer than they pleased. This was 
no army. It might do for a little while, and until some 
better system of defence could be devised, but it was 
plain that it could not last. The fact was clear that 
one organization was indispensable, with a single com- 
mander-in-chief It was equally clear that Massachu- 
setts could not supply any thing to reach beyond the 
circle of its own citizens. In order to consolidate the 
means of continental resistance, the power must come 
from a more central source. There was no authority 
lodged anywhere unless it was to be found in the Con- 
gress at Philadelphia. The second Congress of 1775 
assumed it by adopting the army, and by determining 
to supply it with officers of its own. This was the first 
momentous event of the war. 

But even this did not compare in political value with 
the next step, which was the selection of the person who 
was to serve as the commander-in-chief The war was 
in Massachusetts, most of the soldiers assembled were 
Massachusetts men, the organization, what there was of 
it, belonged to Massachusetts, and it was commanded by 
men who had seen some service in the contests for- 
merly waged wdth the French. It would therefore 
have been deemed scarcely unreasonable, if Massachu- 
setts had asked it as a favor of her sister colonies to per- 
mit one of her most accomplished sons to take the guar- 
dianship of his native soil. Neither could the colonies 
have objected with any grace, unless they had had it in 
their power to offer some individual of indisputably 



21 



greater skill, equal integrity, and established reputation, ^ 
whose accession to the command would at once give an 
earnest of victory. In point of fact, there was no such 
person. Yet Massachusetts did nothing of what might 
have been expected of her. Massachusetts remembered 
that the active struggles of the world are conducted 
with effect mainly by the young. She overlooked the 
gray hairs, the long experience, the honorable services 
of some of her own officers, and with a tr-ast creditable 
to her magnanimity, whatever might have been the 
issue, went into the colony of Virginia to pick out a 
young man, only forty-three years of age, not greatly 
versed in the theory or the practice of war, not distin- 
guished for extensive acquirements of any kind, and 
recommended mainly by the rough toils and hardy ser- 
vice to which he had voluntarily exposed himself in the 
forests of the West, as well as by a display of the judg- 
ment, the firmness, and the decision which fit a man 
anywhere and always for command. That man was 
George Washington. When Massachusetts assumed the 
responsibility of expressing this preference, her mem- 
bers knew very little of the individual excepting by 
report. The risk was prodigious, — yet prodigiously 
was it redeemed by the result. Truly was it said at 
the time by one of the delegates, that " the liberties of 
America depended upon him in a great degree." Yet 
he proved all and more than all that the most sanguine 
imagination could have anticipated. 

Yet it is good to stop here a moment and consider 
the character of Washington calmly. Eulogists have 
striven w^ith each other in the labor of painting him as 
a perfect man, a species of phoenix often described but 
never seen by human eyes. I know not how it may be 



'22 



with others, but these labors have the effect of chilling 
instead of warming my admiration. If Washington 
was perfect, then is there nothing in common between 
him and any of us who feel a strong sense of our own 
imperfections. He is inimitable, therefore no object for 
imitation. His example is of no use whatever to the 
world. Again, if Washington possessed in himself a 
combination of qualities which led him so surely to do 
right, then was his merit in overcoming temptations to 
do otherwise much less than that of those of us who 
have greater internal difficulties to contend with. The 
fighting deities of ancient mythology who are described 
as immortal cannot be praised for courage, as men who 
risk their lives in a battle. Achilles, invulnerable ex- 
cepting in one spot, was in every attribute of heroism 
incomparably beneath Hector who went to the field 
shielded by no unusual protection. I do not much 
relish this tendency to transform Washington into a 
mythical idol. I believe he was in fact very much like 
the rest of us; that he had his emotions, his tempta- 
tions, his prejudices, and his passions, just like all other 
men ; and that his true fame rests upon his passage 
through a trying career under the guidance of one par- 
amount idea of right, performing his high duties noblj^, 
conscientiously, disinterestedly to the close. If so, he 
is then a fair object of imitation for all youthful Amer- 
icans. The same rule of action is not bej^ond the reach 
of any of you, — and, if faithfully followed out, though 
it may not hit exactly the same path of worldly success, 
will abundantly bless in its fruits the life of every one 
who shall determine to adhere to it. Ample opportuni- 
ties fall within the range of the men of every genera- 
tion, to develop just the same qualities, if they choose 



23 



it. Perhaps this very day and this very hour may sug- 
gest to us that a second Washington would not be un- 
welcome to restore to us something of the purity and 
the dignity of the heroic period of the republic. It 
was but a few days earlier than this, eighty-one years 
ago, that Congress conferred upon Washington the first 
great trust of his life, and that he issued from Philadel- 
phia on his way to the fields then fresh with the blood 
of the slain of Bunker Hill. Is it preposterous to sup- 
pose that the lapse of time has done nothing to cut off 
other opportunities, albeit not exactly of the same 
kind, for developing the same great traits of courage 
and of fortitude, of ardor and of self-control which then 
began to fasten upon him the eyes of an admiring 
world ? 

I have spoken of the first great event of the Eevolu- 
tionary struggle, the choice of a chief adequate to the 
emergency. Let me now come to the second, the 
enunciation of the great principles for which he fought. 
And this brings me to the consideration of the act 
of which this day is the anniversary. But prior to 
this, let me remind you, my young friends, of the fact 
which I have already stated that in the beginning there 
was no sign of a wish in America to be independent. 
The struggle had been wantonly brought on by men 
in office, for purposes of their own, through a series of 
aggressions on the rights of freemen, which left the 
latter no choice except slavery or resistance by force. 
It was not then a commonplace contest for j)ower, 
which either party, if victorious, might abuse at will. 
It was rather a pure question of Liberty. The position 
of the Americans had been strictly defensive. Their 
spirit had been pacific, until roused by the despotic 



24 



temper of their rulers from beyond the water. It was 
this which at last impelled them against their will to 
cement the connection of the colonies under the ral- 
lying cry of a union of all honest men. It was this 
which elicited in its season a justification of their con- 
duct, which expanding itself far beyond the area of their 
immediate necessities, identified their cause with that of 
human liberty for ever throughout the world. 

The paper called the Declaration of Independence, 
which agreeably to a time-honored custom you have 
heard this day read to you, was not needed for the 
maintenance of the colonial cause. Neither was such 
an exposition at all contemplated in the action pro- 
posed by the respective colonies. That was confined 
to a mere affirmation of the fact that "these United 
Colonies are and of right ought to be free and inde- 
pendent States." Such were the terms of the resolu- 
tion offered in Congress on the 10th of June by Rich- 
ard Henry Lee, in obedience to the instructions of Vir- 
ginia. It was upon this and this alone that the great 
debate on independence actually took place. But you 
must not fail to observe that its scope was any thing 
but wide. It contemplated but one step, a transition 
from thirteen dependent, to as many independent gov- 
ernments. It assumed to be the action of separate com- 
munities, harmonizing only for the single object ex- 
•pressed. It was predicated singly upon a presumed vio- 
lation of chartered rights, and was silent about natural 
or individual rights. Hence there were no guaranties 
of the latter in the social condition of the states after 
they should have established their independence, and 
no restraints upon power if it should incline to become 
oppressive. Independence of a distant sovereignty was 



25 



all that was to be gained by it. But Massachusetts 
or Virginia could have gained that, and yet would not 
have been estopped from instituting within her borders 
any form of government she might please, even were it 
in spirit ten times more subversive of personal rights 
than the one against which she had striven in arms. 
The resolution affirmed the independence of the state 
very broadly, it is true, but it did not comprehend 
either individual freedom or collective union, without 
which the other boon would prove of comparatively 
small value. And even independence itself, it claimed 
not so much in virtue of any general principle having 
an application beyond the sphere of the immediate 
emergency, as on the score of the special causes for dis- 
satisfaction to which the abuse of power by the mother 
country in this case might have happened to give rise. 

Here it was that a new measure was adopted, that 
at once 

" As with an anchor fixed the uriving state." 

Congress determined to accompany their action, with a 
paper designed to be a full explanation to the world 
of the reasons on which they proposed to defend it. 
Happily the task of preparing this document fell upon 
Thomas Jefferson, a man quite competent to take in 
the grandeur of the idea, and singularly gifted with the 
power to compress his meaning within the most felici- 
tous forms. Far from seeking to limit the application 
of his doctrine, he studiously labored to generalize it as 
extensively as possible. As a consequence, single cases 
of wrong started up at once into affirmations of uni- 
versal right. And the tyranny of one master was made 
to establish on everlasting foundations the inalienable 



• 26 



rights of every subject. Never was there a more mag- 
nificent expansion of a noble cause. Hence it is that 
from the outset the author seems to have forgotten the 
factitious subdivision into thirteen communities, and to 
have spoken out at once grandly and broadly in the 
name and on behalf of associated man. 

" When," he says, " it becomes necessary for one people 
to dissolve the political bands which have connected 
them with another, a decent respect to the opinions of 
mankind requires that they should declare the causes 
which impel them to the separation." 

And after enumerating those causes with care, he 
once more emphatically declares, not in the name of the 
Colonies, but of the collective body, that 

" A prince, whose character is thus marked by every 
act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler 
of a free people'' 

"We, therefore, the representatives of the United 
States of America in general Congress assembled, do, in 
the name, and by authority of the good people of these 
colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these United 
Colonies, are, and of right ought to be, free and inde- 
pendent States." 

It was then the voice of one people, speaking through 
thirteen forms of organization united for common ob- 
jects and acting separately for their local convenience, 
which was uttered to the world on the 4th of July, 
1776. The great idea of union, was thus incorporated 
into the very essence of the compact, inspiring all the 
parties to it with confidence in a mutual support under 
future trials. It was a union endeared to them, too, 
by a sense of common injuries received from arbitrary 
power and by the conviction of its value in repelling 



27 



common dangers. Above all it was a union in the 
nature of a joint pledge before the world that the 
wrongs of which its members complained at the hands 
of the king of Great Britain, and which justified their 
refusal further to acknowledge his supremacy, should 
ever be stamped by them with the same reprobation, by 
whomsoever they might be afterwards repeated. Not 
for themselves alone did they speak but for their most 
remote posterity. Nor yet did they denounce the Brit- 
ish sovereign alone, but likewise every future tyrant 
great or small who should be so wicked as to copy his 
example. 

But beyond and above this brilliant light is found an- 
other and a more dazzling one, the central point of the 
new system, and its warming and vivifying essence. I 
need not explain that it is the guaranty spontaneously 
offered of a new era of freedom to the race. It was not 
enough to say that the king had transcended his legit- 
imate authority, and had encroached upon the rights 
secured to his subjects by the constitution of his coun- 
try. The paper went on to assert in behalf of innocent 
man in every clime certain natural rights of which no 
human power can justly deprive him. The words are 
doubtless familiar to you, but they will never do harm 
by repetition. 

" We hold these truths to be self-evident ; that all 
men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among 
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 
That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted 
among men, deriving their just powers from the con- 
sent of the governed ; that whenever any form of gov- 
ernment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the 



28 



right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to insti- 
tute new government, laying its foundation on such 
principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to 
them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and 
happiness." 

Behold in this declaration not simply the rejection of 
the despotic power of the British king, but the inhibi- 
\ tion of the exercise of the like by any authority that 
' might succeed to his. Behold a pledge that Americans 
will for ever renounce the pretensions to any such sway 
over each other as they had been driven by persecu- 
tion to throw off from themselves. In future no action 
likely to make the race retrograde into slavery shall 
ever receive sympathy at their hands, but a strong 
sense of their own sufferings will make them accept 
with delight every wise and just measure that shall 
have for its object the further emancipation of their 
kind. 

If this be, then, a correct view of the definition of 
rights, the leading object of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence must be presumed to have been to inau- 
gurate an era of enlarged political freedom. Looking 
beyond the immediate present, the keen eye of the 
author contemplated the steadily increasing force of a 
mighty principle which might ultimately ingraft itself 
upon the convictions of the world. A principle which 
would diminish the causes and soften the hardships of 
war, and instead of protracting the ferocity transmitted 
from a barbarous age would lighten the pains of every 
dungeon, and work out the liberation of every innocent 
captive. Much of this good it has already done. A 
comparison of the prevailing customs and modes of 
thought at this period with those described as existing 



29 



a century .ago would show a much more rapid progress 
all over the world than most persons are apt to imag- 
ine. Yet it must be confessed that a great deal re- 
mains yet to do, and most of all in America where 
obstacles to progress were the least expected. 
;_That the Declaration of Independence was a step 
greatly in advance of the age in which it was made 
cannot be denied. Its framers were not unconscious of 
the fact that much existed immediately around them 
not in harmony with the principles they had set forth. 
But that was no reason with them for hesitating to 
enunciate the all-important truths. They were sensible 
of the presence of habits and customs transmitted from 
the old world, and copied from adverse forms of govern- 
ment, unpropitious to an immediate reception of the 
new teaching. They were too wise not to understand 
that in all the great movements of society, hasty and 
overrough handling of existing institutions may occa- 
sion greater evils than it is designed to remedy. They 
therefore contented themselves with the enunciation 
of solemn truth, which with its still small voice should 
ever be out in quest of ears willing to catch it in the 
intervals of calm from the busy hum of the world's in- 
dustry, and thus gradually wind its way into the deep- 
est recesses of human conviction. Restins; satisfied with 
fixing upon an imperishable foundation in America, the 
axiom that Liberty was the general rule, they left all 
that might at the moment be exceptional in the na- 
tional practices to the purifying besom of time, which 
in the end is sure to sweep away as rubbish all obsolete 
errors of opinion and of principle.^ 

And indeed this calculation has not been altogether 
mistaken. In the course of eighty years the legislation 

3* 



30 



of America has been purified of much that was not in 
harmony with the new dispensation. The laws of pri- 
mogeniture, those of entail, proprietary rights in some 
States and feudal customs in others, the claims of an 
established church and the continuation of exclusive 
powers in the hands of classes, have given way before 
the force of the doctrine of equal rights. Even the 
habit of holding innocent men in bondage, which was 
universal at the opening of the Revolution, has grad- 
ually receded from one half of the Union, and the stat- 
ute-books, which teemed with provisions for the perpet- 
uation of a system of caste, have been purged of many 
of their stains. So long as he lived, no person was 
more active and influential in accelerating these re- 
forms, especially in his own State where they were the 
most needed, than the author of the Declaration of 
Independence himself 

Thus it will appear how much has actually been 
gained in the progress of time by the great recognition 
of principles made on the 4th of July, 1776, But it is 
not to be pretended that far more does not yet remain 
to be done before their operation shall have become 
really complete. The opinions of men undergo transi- 
tions, sometimes very rapidly, under the pressure of 
favoring circumstances, and at others scarcely percep- 
tible in their motion. Doubtless much may yet be seen 
in the institutions of the old States at least, which 
seems to harmonize more with the notions of the old 
world than with those of the new. But so long as the 
natural vigor of the great charter of our Independence 
shall be preserved, and its sway extended over the 
minds of the rising generations, there is reason for 
hope that every casual exception will disappear, and 



31 



that in the end the United States may become that 
example of a great free nation to the rest of man- 
kind which its founders most ardently hoped that it 
might be. 

But in order to reach this blessed result, it behooves 
you, my young friends, who are coming upon the stage, 
to hold fast the vital essence that alone can bring it 
surely about. Union and freedom. Union of all honest 
men for the sake of freedom. Union, as the instrument 
of effecting the most general good. Freedom, as the 
agent without which there can be no good at all. I 
say this with the more earnestness that I think I have 
seen among us of late years some relaxation of attach- 
ment to both these principles. It has even been boldly 
declared of late that our national institutions do not 
naturally and necessarily carry with them the cardinal 
doctrine of the Declaration of Independence, wherever 
they may go. Such an idea seems to me to be false to 
our first duty as a people, false to the memory of our 
fathers, false to the pledges given on every battle field 
of the Revolution. It indicates the presence and op- 
eration of a corrupting cause which if not counteracted 
will completely enervate \h.Q manhood of America. It 
betrays that stage of society which I should be sorry 
that the poet's words could apply to us so soon, 

" But what more oft, in nations grown corrupt, 
And by their vices brought to servitude, 
Than to love bondage more than liberty, 
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty." 

Let no such slander be whispered against the youth 
of our day. If the men of 1776 pledged their lives, 
their fortunes, and their sacred honors to resist meas- 



32 



ures having for their object the establishment of a 
tyranny over this people, how much more is it the 
duty of all of you to watch unceasingly that no similar 
attempt, no matter what may be the form it shall as- 
sume, be repeated with your sanction, either express 
or implied. How much more should it be your care 
that the maxims which they set up as the guardian 
angels of a happy land should be left free to expand 
their wings over the ever-enlarging area of our social 
state. 

My young friends, — We have seen to-day the case 
of a King's reign commenced in great glory, but by 
reason of the errors of his minister and his own ar- 
bitrary temper soon verging into a tyranny, which 
brought on a conflict, and a final disruption of the em- 
pire. We have seen on the other hand, a country rising 
from the struggle, instinct with vigorous youth, which 
under the guidance of a firm and patriotic chief, and 
inspired by lofty principles, established a system of 
Liberty and Union. It is then for you to remember 
from this lesson how much the happiness and the secu- 
rity of society depend upon the spirit in which human 
authority is directed. You are yet young, and know 
little of the hazards that attend this last and greatest 
attempt to reap the fruits of an enlightened and Chris- 
tian civilization. In a country like this, it is not to be 
expected that the political atmosphere should always 
be clear, or the sky free from 

" the passing clouds 
That often hang on Freedom's brow." 

But there will be little real dano-er of failure so long; 
as you do not forget that you are one iKople from the 



33 



Atlantic to the Pacific shore, and that you were born a 
free people. Beware of evil advisers who countenance 
the doctrines that may leave you slaves in age. Keep 
fast hold of the precepts which your patriotic ancestors 
transmitted to you, and aim to follow their example in 
your practice. The solemn paper which has been read 
to-day is their legacy to you ; the fields almost within 
your sight, once bathed in their blood, speak trumpet- 
tongued to you of the fortitude with which they suf- 
fered in order to make you men. Resolve, then, to 
remain in your latest years as you were in your youth. 
Stand as firm in refusing to encroach on the rights of 
your fellows as in maintaining your own — as resolute 
in continuing the American name a word of praise to 
all people living under the folds of the national flag, as 
in frowning down oppression everywhere, no matter 
what shape it may assume, no matter what association 
it may soHcit. Above all cling with an undying grasp 
to the double injunction of the charter of Independence, 
and it shall be the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar 
of fire by night, which shall lead you safely out of the 
perils as well of impending flood as of the fiery desert 
into a land redolent of the richest bounties of provi- 
dence, of peace and plenty, of freedom abroad and of 
safety at home, of wisdom in council and of vigor in 
action, of trust in man, and of honor to the great God 
above, who 

" From the faithful records of his throne, 
Bids the historian and the bard 
Dispose of honor and of scorn ; 
Discern the patriot from the slave ; 
And write the good, the wise, the brave 
For lessons to the multitude unborn." 



APPENDIX. 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

ON THE EIGHTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL 

CHURCH IN QUINCY, JULY 4, 1856. 

I. Voluntary on the Organ. 

II. Piece to be selected and sung by the Choir. 

III. Prayer by Rev. Mr. Clark. 

IV. Hymn to be sung by Pupils of the Public Schools, and to be 
read by Rev. Mr. Rice. 

When, driven by oppression's rod, 

Our Fathers fled across the sea, 
Their care was first to honor God, 

And next to leave their children free. 

Above the forest's gloomy shade. 

The ALTAR and the SCHOOL appeared; 

On that — their gifts of faith were laid. 
In this — their precious hopes were reared. 

Armed with intelligence and zeal, 

Their sons shook off the tyrant's chain ; 
The rights of Freemen quick to feel, 

And nobly daring to maintain. 

The ALTAR and the SCHOOL stiU stand 

The sacred Pillars of our trust ; 
And Freedom's sous shall fill the land 

When we are sleeping in the dust. 



•36 

Before thine Altar, Lord, we bend 

With grateful song and fervent prayer ; 
For thou who wast our fathers' friend, 

Wilt make our offspring still thy care. 

V. Heading of the Declaration of Independence, by John Quinct 
Adams, Esq. 

VI. Singing by Choir. 

VII. Address by Hon. C. F. Adams. 

VIII. National Hymn, to be sung by Pupils of the Schools, and to 
be read by Eev. Mr. Paulson. 

My country ! 't is of thee, 
Sweet land of Liberty, 

Of thee I sing ; 
Land where my fathers died, 
Land of the Pilgrims' pride ; 
From every mountain side 

Let Freedom ring. 

My native country ! thee, 
Land of the noble free ! 

Thy name I love ; 
I love thy rocks and rills. 
Thy woods and templed hills ; 
My heart with rapture thrills, 

Like that above. 

Our fathers' God ! to Thee, 
Author of Liberty, 

To Thee we sing ! 
Long may our land be bright, 
With Freedom's holy light. 
Protect us by Thy might. 

Great God, our King ! 

IX. Benediction, by Rev. Mr. Bradley. 



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